Non-Stop, 2014
Directed by Jaume Collet-Serra
Starring Liam Neeson, Julianne Moore, Scoot McNairy, Michelle Dockery, Nate Parker, Corey Stoll, Lupita Nyong’o and Omar Metwally
SYNOPSIS:
An air marshal springs into action during a transatlantic flight after receiving a series of text messages that put his fellow passengers at risk unless the airline transfers $150 million into an off-shore account.
In an interview we had with director Jaume Collet-Serra, he said that no one has really made a movie like Non-Stop before. We’ve had action and disaster movies on planes, but not a murder mystery. It’s an interesting concept and, for the most part, it works. But Non-Stop just can’t seem to past above a certain level, making it only an extremely average movie.
Liam Neeson plays Bill Marks, an air marshal who, while on a routine flight, gets strange messages from a passenger who claims he will kill someone every twenty minutes unless they get $150 million. Marks must now work against the clock with the help of the crew and Jen Summers (Julianne Moore) who was sat next to him when they took off to find the culprit and land the plane.
Like the Arnold Schwarzenegger comedy Junior, Non-Stop feels like it was a great pitch and not much else. A murder mystery on an aeroplane sounds really interesting as does Arnie being pregnant, but in reality it’s a bit of a drag with contrivance after contrivance to try and justify its plot. The forced character dialogue doesn’t help matters and the script never really creates any tension to draw you in to keep you guessing. Murder mysteries need to thrive on this, but Non-Stop is very lacking in it.
Neeson has really carved a new chapter of his long career as a good action star as he can do all of the punching and kicking while still bring genuine acting chops for character moments. And while he is held back by a lacking script, he does a good job as Marks. He is a man who is determined to find out who is putting these lives in danger and is never thrown off by the fact the criminals are framing him for the crime. Julianne Moore is perfectly serviceable as Jen, but she isn’t given much more to do other than act as someone for Marks to explain things to. It should come as no surprise that Collet-Serra said in our interview that they didn’t have much character for Jen in the script.
And that really is the fault of the movie – the script. The writing trio of John W. Richardson, Christopher Roach and Ryan Engle struggle to keep interest up and, like a lot of one-location movies, run out of ideas pretty quickly. In doing this, they push the boundaries of “suspension of disbelief” to move the plot forward to the point where Non-Stop just feels a bit silly.
Both Neeson and Collet-Serra are better than this. It’s not like Non-Stop is a terrible movie because it really isn’t. The acting and action are both really good, but are let down by a weak script with dreadful dialogue, forced character exposition and an unsatisfying conclusion. Collet-Serra is correct, no one has made a movie like this before. Let’s just hope that the next person who tries has better luck.
Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★
Luke Owen is one of Flickering Myth’s co-editors and the host of the Flickering Myth Podcast. You can follow him on Twitter @LukeWritesStuff.
Read our interview with Jaume Collet-Serra here.
Originally published June 23, 2014. Updated April 15, 2018.
